A PLACE on the FRINGE of SAGALASSOS the Excavations at the Rock Sanctuary
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A PLACE ON THE FRINGE OF SAGALASSOS The excavations at the Rock Sanctuary Peter TALLOEN, Philip BES, Mücella ALBAYRAK, Bea DE CUPERE, Katrien VAN DE VIJVER and Jeroen POBLOME* Abstract The so-called Rock Sanctuary, a distinctive limestone rock outcrop with natural cavities situated in the periphery of the Pisidian city of Sagalassos (SW-Turkey), was a natural feature that was served a variety of functions throughout its his- tory. Rescue excavations carried out at the site mainly yielded evidence for the deposition of specialised offerings in the form of ceramic, glass, metal and stone vessels, pieces of personal adornment, instruments for textile production, but especially many thousands of fragments of terracotta figurines. All of these iden- tified RS as a ‘special-purpose site’, a natural landform that was given a cultural significance, not by means of monumentalisation but through the activities that took place there during the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial periods. It was the combination of all these objects as a whole and the very context in which these were used and placed that made it possible to identify the site as a sanctuary, more particularly, a site of popular worship. This paper presents an overview of those excavations, highlighting the significance of this site in the landscape of Sagalassos and what it can tell us about the community that conceived it and used it as a cult site, outside of the sphere of official religious practice. RS thus offered a unique glimpse into an aspect of ancient life not previously known from Sagalassos. * Peter Talloen is Assistant Professor of Archaeology at the Süleyman Demirel University of Isparta (SDU; Turkey) and Assistant Director of the Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project (SARP); Philip Bes is an independent researcher from the Netherlands and a Roman pottery specialist of SARP; Mücella Albayrak is a PhD candidate in Archaeology at SDU; Bea De Cupere is an archaeozoologist at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS); Katrien Van de Vijver is an archaeo-anthropologist at RBINS; Jeroen Poblome is Full Professor of Archaeology at KU Leuven (Belgium) and Director of SARP. The study of the Rock Sanc- tuary was supported by the Belgian Science Policy Office, the Research Fund of KU Leuven and the Research Foundation Flanders. The authors would like to thank the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey, its Kültür Varlıkları ve Müzeler Genel Müdürlüğü, and its representatives for the excavation per- mission, support and most appreciated aid during the 2014-2018 fieldwork campaigns. They especially wish to thank the former director of the Burdur Museum, Hacı Ali Ekinci, for his help in facilitating the rescue excavations. Finally, other scholars who contributed to the study of the different find categories excavated at RS are acknowledged: Dries Daems (Hellenistic pottery), Veerle Lauwers (glass), Ralf Vandam (prehistoric pottery) and Rinse Willet (cookware). Anatolica XLVI (2020), 249-290. doi: 10.2143/ANA.46.0.3288927 © Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten / Peeters. All rights reserved. 250 P. TALLOEN ET AL. INTRODUCTION During the study campaign of June 2014 a collection of terracotta figurines, stored in the depots of the Sagalassos Project in the village of Ağlasun (province of Burdur, Turkey), were reviewed for publication. This collection included a group of mould-made terracotta figurines dating to the Roman Imperial period, which had been confiscated in 1991 by local authorities and handed over to the Sagalassos Project for safe storage in the depots of the excavation house. The figurines allegedly originated from illegal excavations in the vicinity of the archaeological site of Sagalassos. Upon inquiry as to the exact origin of the artefacts, team members of the Sagalassos Project were taken by a local shepherd to a location some 600 m to the southeast of the urban centre, immediately beside the mod- ern road leading to the ancient city (Fig. 1). Fig. 1. Location and aerial image of the Rock Sanctuary (Google Earth 2017). This proved to be a limestone rock outcrop in the mountain slope with several large crevices covered by limestone boulders, thus creating several cavities within the mass of the rock (Fig. 2). The abundant presence of artefacts on the surface both within the crevices as in its immediate surroundings in the form of many hundreds of fragments of locally produced terracotta figurines, but also of ceramic and glass vessels dating to the Late Hel- lenistic and Roman Imperial periods, confirmed this site as the source of the confiscated terracotta figurines. Furthermore, the exceptional nature of these finds in terms of type and quantity allowed this location to be identified as a site of ‘specialised deposit’” of artefacts1. While terracotta figurines could be deposited in a number of contexts, such as 1 Alcock and Rempel 2006. A PLACE ON THE FRINGE OF SAGALASSOS 251 Fig. 2. View of the rock outcrop from the northwest (© Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project). domestic contexts and burials2, their exceptional quantity in a cave-like location, which was often considered numinous in antiquity3, pointed to a cultic site. This was an area set apart for the worship of gods, a holy place where people went to undertake religious ritu- als in the form of sacrifice, prayer, and the giving of votive offerings. Accordingly, the site was designated as the ‘Rock Sanctuary’ (hereafter RS). Dumps of excavated material present throughout the site indicated that it had fallen victim to many years of illicit digging, which destroyed much of the stratigraphical record. This undoubtedly caused the loss of numerous finds, which were sold to private collectors and museums all over the world. Most of those pieces most probably ended up in Turkey: at the regional archaeological museums of Burdur and Isparta 330 of the 541 registered figurines (or 61%) and 70 of the 140 registered figurines (or 50%) respectively could be generally attributed to the production at Sagalassos on the basis of typology and clay fab- ric, and in some cases actual fits between fragments kept at the Burdur Museum and fragments excavated at RS leave no doubt that these were brought from RS4. Also, several pieces kept at the Sadberk Hanım Museum in Istanbul most probably originated from the site5. More exceptional figurines in terms of preservation and suspected to have come from RS have also been recognised among the collections of museums outside of Turkey such as the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, the Princeton University Art Museum, and the Martin von Wagner Museum in Würzburg, and among items that were sold at major auctioneers such as Christies’ and Sotheby’s6. Given the fact that the site is easily accessible for clandestine activities, as attested by the illegal excavations, permission was sought for immediate scientific investigation of the sanctuary in the form of rescue excavations in collaboration with the directorate of the 2 Huysecom-Haxhi and Muller 2015. 3 Mavridis et al. 2013. 4 Talloen 2020. 5 Talloen and Özden-Gerçeker 2020. 6 Talloen and Özden-Gerçeker 2020. 252 P. TALLOEN ET AL. Fig. 3. Plan of RS with indication of the different rooms (measured and drawn by Ö. Başağaç; © Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project). Archaeological Museum of Burdur. Firstly, the aim of these excavations was to clear com- pletely the deposits of previously excavated soil and salvage whatever artefacts remained in them. Furthermore, the spaces inside the rock outcrop were investigated in the hope of finding in situ deposits not touched by past illicit excavations, which could inform on the occupational history of the site and provide a more precise chronology for the different categories of material culture that were deposited there. In view of its potential for understanding ancient religious practice in the region, a second aim of the excavations concerned the nature of the cult or cults that were prac- ticed at RS, i.e. which gods were worshipped, by whom and by means of which religious practices. These questions would be answered through an examination of the situation and physical form of the sanctuary on the one hand, and the residue of ritual activity, in the shape of diverse classes of material evidence, embedded in it on the other. In order to achieve these aims a series of trenches was planned in the three areas encom- passing four spaces – designated Rooms 1 to 4 – of the cave-like complex that had not completely collapsed and therefore were (partly) accessible for research (Fig. 3). These areas were investigated over four excavation campaigns at the site, between 2014 and 20187. First, these spaces and their stratigraphy will be addressed, before we turn to the occupa- tional history of the site. 7 Talloen et al. 2015; Poblome et al. 2019. A PLACE ON THE FRINGE OF SAGALASSOS 253 SPACES AND STRATIGRAPHY As mentioned above, RS is not an actual cave site but consists of a rock outcrop with several large rock crevices that were covered by huge limestone boulders creating a number of cave-like spaces. On the outside no obvious remains of any man-made structures or traces of stone carving could be observed, and also inside the natural appearance of the outcrop was largely left unchanged. Our current understanding of RS is severely hindered by the collapse of the ceiling of those spaces, making large parts inaccessible and the spatial analysis of the complex a difficult enterprise. Three main working areas were distinguished: a ‘South Zone’ with the probable entrance to the complex and Room 1 in the southeastern part of the outcrop, a ‘North Zone’ at the northwestern end of the sanctuary complex, that encompassed Room 2 as well as an open-air area where numerous traces of illegal excavation were present, and a ‘Middle Zone’ at the centre of the rock outcrop comprising Rooms 3 and 4.